Handwritten journals from Lizzie Borden lawyer donated to FRHS

Monday

Mar 5, 2012 at 12:01 AMMar 5, 2012 at 5:05 AM

The journals may be yellowed with age, a little tattered and faded, but the wealth of information they provide is anything but lackluster.

Handwritten by Attorney Andrew Jackson Jennings during the trial of Lizzie Borden, the 120-year-old journals recently donated to the Fall River Historical Society, offer insight into the case and the way it was presented.

Deborah Allard

The journals may be yellowed with age, a little tattered and faded, but the wealth of information they provide is anything but lackluster.

Hand written by Attorney Andrew Jackson Jennings during the trial of Lizzie Borden, the 120-year-old journals recently donated to the Fall River Historical Society, offer insight into the case and the way it was presented.

Jennings was the Borden family attorney and one of a team of lawyers hired to defend Lizzie Borden after she was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with a hatchet at their home on Aug. 4, 1892.

The journals were willed to the Society by Edward Saunders Waring, Jennings' grandson, after his recent death. Jennings had been a member of the Fall River Historical Society.

“It’s so rare to have evidence show up in a case 120 years after the fact,” Historical Society Curator Michael Martins said.

The Borden case garnered national attention because of its heinous nature and the fact that a wealthy upper-class woman was the accused.

Now more than a century later, it continues to interest scholars, true crime and history buffs, ghost hunters and regular people from all over the world. Still, the question of whether Lizzie committed the murders remains.

One of the journals acquired lists the names of people Jennings interviewed or wanted to interview in building the defense case. The other journal, a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about the case, is marked for research.

“He cross-referenced everything, and he used a lettering and numbering system,” Martins said.

In looking through the journals, Martins said he’s discovered information that has never been published.

He said Jennings clearly knew many of the people he interviewed on a social or business level, which made them “perhaps a bit more candid than they would have been otherwise.”

One of the personal comments in the journal read: “Mr. Borden used to get letters from L(izzie) and always seemed pleased when he got one — used to talk about it afterwards. I think one a week.”

Martins said the comment probably refers to when Lizzie was away, perhaps on her European tour in 1890.

Martins said some individuals interviewed spoke of their activities and observations in the vicinity of the Borden residence at 92 Second St. the morning of the murders. They also spoke of their interactions with members of the Borden family.

He said there are interesting comments about Mr. Borden’s relationship with his daughters, which he often called “his girls.” He spoke of his desire to see “his girls” well taken care of, and that he “wanted a nice place for them” and to see them well settled.

Some of the evidence in the journal make its way to trial, some did not.

Martins explained that the defense had just a few hours to present its case, while the prosecution had more than a week.

Martins said it’s interesting that the journals have come into the society’s possession shortly after it published “Parallel Lives: A Social History of Lizzie Borden and Her Fall River,” by Martins and Assistant Curator Dennis Binette.

He said many of the people that were introduced for the first time in the book appear in the journals.

“It all fits together,” Martins said. “It’s fascinating what some of these people have to say. It gives a lot of food for thought.”

Martins said the journals are extremely fragile and will be conserved and transcribed, and eventually published by the society.

The journals were discovered in an old hip bath — a bath tub which accommodates a seated person up to the hips — in the attic of Jennings’ home after he and his wife passed. They were kept by daughter Marion Jennings Waring, and then her son, Saunders Waring.

Martins said Saunders Waring retained the documents, which are difficult to read, so his grandfather wouldn’t be misquoted. The family was approached numerous times by authors.

Marion Jennings Waring donated other parts of the “Hip Bath Collection,” as it came to be known, to the society in 1967.

The Hosea Morrill Knowlton papers of Lizzie’s prosecuting attorney were published by the society in 1996. Papers from City Marshall Rufus B. Hilliard have not yet been published.

A sizable team of attorneys, lead by George Dexter Robinson, a former state governor, defended Lizzie Borden.

Martins said trial records are in possession of the law firm Robinson, Donovan, Madden & Barry of Springfield, founded by Robinson in 1866.

Martins said the Society will make no attempts to secure those documents. He said Lizzie Borden paid to be represented and is entitled to attorney and client confidentiality.